The ICT market bets on returning to growth in 2015

4 June 2015 - The ICT market in Italy looks forward to 2015 with confidence. According to an Assinform-Netconsulting report, the sector is bound to return to growth: +1.1%, to €65 billion. Which is no mean feat, considering that the digital market in Italy comes through a rough patch and that since 2011, it has been sliding down a steep slope: suffice it to say that at the time it was valued at €69.4 billion.

Therefore, after terrible years (especially 2013 with its -4.4% and €3 billion lost in the final balance sheet), the long-awaited rebound seems likely to happen. The telecommunications industry continues to suffer, despite the encouraging signs for the information technology segment. In particular, what offset the fall in turnover of telecommunication technologies – also burdened by a price war among operators that characterized 2013 and the beginning of 2014 – were innovative components, such as cloud and the “Internet of Things” (IoT).

As for cloud-based platforms - both public and private - this market grew by 37.4%, reaching over €1 billion in 2014. Similarly, we should mention the IoT and the always-connected devices as market driving forces. The market for wearable items, home automation and smart factories in 2014 has actually increased by 13.3% over 2013, to €1.62 billion. Finally, the app sector was grist to the mill of the market growth. As noted in the Assinform-Netconsulting report, the market reached €448 million in Italy, up 11.9% on an annual basis.

The divergent thrust of these forces has led the market to end 2014 at -1.4%, with a drop in telecommunications (-7.1% to €23.2 billion). The IT components of the market, have instead already reacted since 2014, albeit with different degrees of virulence within them. Digital content and advertising rose by 8.5% to €8.26 billion. Another strong growth was posted by software and ICT solutions (€5.7 billion; + 4.2%) driven by the demand for platforms for website management (+ 13.8% to €247 million), mainly those that enable e-commerce.

The study also details individual entries, for example, reporting the net recovery for PCs (the sales grew 12.5% in volumes to 5 million units) which was influenced by the need to change support after the end of Windows XP decreed by Microsoft.

There has still been an increase for smartphones (+ 14.6% to 14.1 million units sold), while tablets, perhaps also for the growth of the PC, have halted (-8.2% to 3.12 million units sold).

This year now promises to be the year of change of direction for ICT. Content and advertising are expected to grow by 9.3% to €9 billion; ICT services by 0.6% to €10.3 billion; software and ICT solutions by 5.6% to €6 billion; devices and systems by 1.3% to €17.1 billion. Instead, telecommunications network services are expected to decline: -2.8% to €22.5 billion.